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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

blown rib?

Not sure, but it feels pretty familiar. Can't Sleep!

Years ago I spent a couple weeks with Eric and Sue Jones in there trailer racing on the East coast in the mud. The week before I crashed and broke some ribs while tooling around in Millcreek. I went anyway and endured a couple of very pain full weeks. Right up there with racing last years BC Bike race with an abscessed molar.

We started the racing in West Virgina at Snowshoe Mtn Resort on one of the gnarlier race course around.I had good legs but nearly gnawed through my own tongue due to the rib pain. At night I reportedly moaned in my sleep and needed help getting up and down and rolling over. Surely EJ's results would have been even better if he could have got some sleep. On the way up to Mt Snow we rode part of the Shenandoah trail, holy rocky! The drive to Vermont was rough. I had good legs again at Mt Snow and was in the top 20 after the 1st climb only to find that I could not hold onto the bike on the DH. I finally hit a rock and flatted my front wheel. Good thing, I would have never made it to the bottom alive. The flat that saved my life!

Well rough season so far, but it will likely play into some late season form...

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

smarter, but not smart enough

I am no stranger to being blown out. It's happened many times throughout my days trying to juggle bike racing with life and other interests. I have never been fast enough to justify giving all my time to cycling, but have never been slow enough to be purely recreational. And then there is the addiction...

So after a spring of rando races, ski traversing, playing catch up on the bike, and a lot of moving and house work I found myself in a physical pickle. Only this time I was just about smart enough to recognize it early and back off. I say just about smart enough because, ever the optimist I kept thinking a few days rest would do it and I would be back to racing. No dice. I even pulled the plug on a couple local races and am proud of myself for swallowing my pride and not digging the hole deeper. In hindsight it was obvious or from an outsider it was obvious, but for an addict it's never obvious.

Anyway, after some more substantial rest and a couple weeks of going to bed by 9pm I am back to training and feeling pretty good. Rosie did the Little Red 100 miler over the weekend so the girls and I went to Provo to hang out on the farm. Friday Rog and I ripped an hour of trail in the late evening and enjoyed some old and new terrain that took me back to the start of my cycling addictions. Saturday we rode the Alpine loop up the Sundance side where I put in 3 threshold efforts of 10, 8, and 6 minutes. This is one of my favorite tester workouts. Felt pretty good. After getting a Moonpie at the Alpine Chevron I headed back up the AF side for a steady just below threshold climb. 47:32 from the guard shack to the top. Felt solid in my third hour of riding. Recovered well and rode a bunch of Millcreek 1 track solo on Sunday evening including, up and down pipeline, Mt Aire (steep), and the pavement above elbow fork to the top. (snow just before the parking lot at Big/Little Water trail head)

I am learning that as I get older and life gets busier I need to scale back the quantity of racing and focus more on the quality. Pick some key events and prepare for them. Save some weekends for training and life catch up. Plan some cool events and coordinate them with family vacations. This recent bout of adrenal overload seems to have been just what I needed to help me keep the addiction in check.

I'm not out of the woods yet and any one that has dealt with fatigue knows it is easy to slip back into it's grasp. I need to take it easy for a while remembering I only have so many matches to burn. This week should help as I am in Florida for work without a bike which should provide a good recovery block after reintroducing some training stress last weekend. Will see...